Morganucodonta

Morganucodonta is an extinct order of basal Mammaliaformes, a group including crown-group mammals (Mammalia) and their close relatives. Their remains have been found in Southern Africa, Western Europe, North America, India and China. The morganucodontans were probably insectivorous and nocturnal, though like eutriconodonts some species attained large sizes and were carnivorous. Nocturnality is believed to have evolved in the earliest mammals in the Triassic as a specialisation that allowed them to exploit a safer, night-time niche, while most larger predators were likely to have been active during the day.

Morganucodonta

Nordelch · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
MammaliaformesPBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At least 84 million years on record.

The record covers at least 227.3 Mya to 143.1 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 237 Mya to 139.1 Mya.

Middle Triassic — about 0 of 51 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 17 of 51 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 18 of 51 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 11 of 51 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 3 of 51 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 2 of 51 occurrences239–236 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences236–232 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences232–229 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences229–225 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences219–215 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences215–212 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences212–208 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences208–205 Mya — about 2 occurrences205–202 Mya — about 12 occurrences202–198 Mya — about 7 occurrences198–195 Mya — about 6 occurrences195–191 Mya — about 4 occurrences191–188 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences188–185 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences185–181 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences181–178 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences178–174 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences174–171 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences171–168 Mya — about 2 occurrences168–164 Mya — about 8 occurrences158–154 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences154–151 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences151–147 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences147–144 Mya — about 1 occurrence144–141 Mya — about 1 occurrence141–137 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences227.3 Mya143.1 Mya239 Mya137 Mya

51 occurrences of Morganucodonta on record, most of them in the Early Jurassic. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

51 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

15 formations

Forest Marble — 51.87°N, 1.27°WForest Marble — 51.73°N, 1.98°WForest Marble — 50.71°N, 2.78°WGrès à Avicula contorta — 48.62°N, 6.33°EKlettgau — 47.71°N, 8.45°ELufeng — 25.17°N, 102.11°EKota — 19.27°N, 79.52°EKota — 19.11°N, 79.92°EKayenta — 35.76°N, 111.08°WLulworth — 50.60°N, 1.97°WMorrison — 38.99°N, 109.27°WElliot — 28.90°S, 27.57°EFleming Fjord — 71.48°N, 22.68°WMoskovoretskaya — 55.20°N, 38.78°ETiki — 23.92°N, 81.37°EElliot — 30.35°S, 27.75°EKilmaluag — 57.17°N, 6.11°WSüntel — 51.90°N, 10.50°E

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The named rock units Morganucodonta has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 19 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Morganucodonta and its relatives

Early Jurassic

Where Morganucodonta and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

380 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 31 sites for Morganucodonta, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

31 references

Each of the 51 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 19 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Morganucodonta

Credit
Nordelch
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Morganucodonta was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itMammaliaformes through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Kermack and et al 1973)